Wednesday, 7 October 2015

Alien Connections

On Sunday afternoon I set out to collect a second hand bike
that I had paid an elderly gentleman for the previous day.He lived in a flat that was part of a large
subsidised housing block in a new suburb on the outskirts of Haarlem. I suspect
that the block was constructed during the ugly 1980s, for it was totally devoid
of any charm.What it lacked in charm,
it seemed to have replaced with a lively street scene, busy with dark haired
children shooting hoops, riding bikes and running amok.

The walk to this outer suburb had taken me over an
hour.Along the last section of the
journey, a woman waiting at a bus stop interrupted me to ask the time.She was later middle aged, with a head of
faded rusty hair, and the face of someone who had experienced many hard
days.Upon hearing my botched efforts at
speaking Dutch, she put her hand on my forearm and asked me where I was from. Her delight at finding a similarly displaced
soul was obvious.

In five fast minutes, she told me that she was from
Budapest.She had moved to the
Netherlands when Hungary offered her nothing more than a life of hardship and
poverty.Her Dutch was perfect, at least
compared to mine, yet she was easily identifiable as a fellow allochtoon – someone not Dutch, an alien.We had a familiar conversation about boring
local food, missing family and friends, and that nebulous feeling of not really
belonging.

It was that feeling that connected two strangers on a bus
stop.The bus arrived and I waved her goodbye
as she boarded, plonked on a seat and smiled at me through the window.I continued on my journey to collect the bike,
feeling very human.